Abrams And Lindelof Abandon ‘The Dark Tower’

JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof, the masterminds behind Lost, have announced that their proposed adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower will not be going ahead after all. King is of course best known for his horror books and, as you know, his back catalogue has already been regularly delved into over the years by filmmakers with adaptations ranging from the brilliant The Shining to the terrible Sleepwalkers. The Dark Tower, although containing elements of horror, is best described as a Fantasy Western and is spread over a series of seven books.

According to Abrams, it’s not down to lack of interest that he has changed his mind about adapting Dark Tower though,

“You’ll be hard-pressed to find a huger fan of The Dark Tower than me, but that’s probably the reason that I shouldn’t be the one to adapt it,” he revealed. “After working six years on Lost, the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.”

Something which Lindelof said a while ago is perhaps more revealing as to why the adaptation is not going ahead..

“Having seen Zack go through what he went through on Watchmen in terms of saying where can I digress from the material, I just get headaches thinking about changing anything,”

It’s a shame that filmmakers have such pressure on them to stay absolutely faithful to source material. People should accept that certain changes/ compromises have to be made when transferring from page to screen. I suppose I can’t really complain though as i’m still cursing Peter Jackson for leaving Tom Bombadil out of Lord of the Rings, damn you Jacksoooon.

I’m up to book four of this series and all I can think when I’m reading it is how fantastic a film series it would make. I’m glad Abrams is not a part of this, to be honest, it needs a hand with more restraint than he might have perhaps used.